ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In the new movie "Piece By Piece," the musical hitmaker Pharrell Williams describes himself as someone who always knew he was different, a maverick who thinks outside the box. So it makes a strange kind of sense that this film about Pharrell's life is a Lego movie.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "PIECE BY PIECE")
PHARRELL WILLIAMS: (As himself) You know what'd be cool - is if, like, we told my story with Lego pieces.
MORGAN NEVILLE: (As himself, laughter) Seriously?
WILLIAMS: (As himself) Yes.
NEVILLE: (As himself) Lego?
WILLIAMS: (As himself) Yes.
SHAPIRO: "Piece By Piece" is a hybrid of genres. It's part-documentary, sort of a biopic and also animated, taking us from his childhood in a Virginia Beach housing project called Atlantis through the biggest hits of his career, including that inescapable tune, "Happy."
(SOUNDBITE OF PHARRELL WILLIAMS SONG, "HAPPY")
WILLIAMS: (Singing) Because I'm happy. Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof because I'm happy.
SHAPIRO: So the first question I had to ask Pharrell was, what's it like to see yourself without a nose? And he said it's a bit like what he imagines it would be like to see an actor play you.
WILLIAMS: Seeing my story objectified...
SHAPIRO: Quite literally.
WILLIAMS: Yeah. It really helped me when it came time for me to do the song for the movie. Like, I wouldn't have done the song that I ended up doing. It happened because there was that level of objectivity.
SHAPIRO: There's a handful of new songs you wrote for the movie. Which one are you talking about?
WILLIAMS: "Piece By Piece."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PIECE BY PIECE")
WILLIAMS: (Singing) Let me build what I see. You know it starts with a piece. Give it time. Let it breathe instead of suffocating crazy dreams - hey - till it starts paying off.
It wouldn't have sounded that way and it wouldn't have come out that way if it weren't for doing it in Lego. I don't know what song I would have made. It would have probably been sad and all heavy and...
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
WILLIAMS: You know?
SHAPIRO: The core of your career, of your art, of this movie is making beats. And in this Lego movie, we see beats as actual, visual things that you can hold, that you can play with. What did you want those beats that are so important to you to actually look like on the screen?
WILLIAMS: It's already very difficult to try to illustrate the process of synesthesia and how you see colors, right? That's, like, not a very easy thing to communicate.
SHAPIRO: You've always had this connection between sounds and colors.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "PIECE BY PIECE")
WILLIAMS: (As himself) It's called synesthesia. It's not something that you see with your physical eyes. It's something that you see in your mind's eye.
Yeah. So that's very hard to, like, illustrate to begin with, let alone, like, to do it in Lego form. But I think we successfully did it in a way that, like, kind of gives at least, like, a clear context for people. And then to actually put them in shapes for tracks and beats and the layers that go along with making music - that, too - those weren't easy feats. It's, like...
SHAPIRO: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: ...Kind of crazy how we pulled that off, man. Again, I'm just so humble because, you know, when I was a kid, you know, the earliest toys I ever received were, like, Lego sets. You know, so you never dreamt when you were, like, fidgeting around with them, like, as a little kid, using pieces, you know, piece by piece, literally, not thinking you're going to turn 51 and there's, like, a film coming out about your life. And, you know, you're Black and tan in a Lego land. Like...
SHAPIRO: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: What is my life?
SHAPIRO: I love one of the things that Snoop Dogg says in this movie. You helped make his first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, "Drop It Like It's Hot. "
(SOUNDBITE OF SNOOP DOGG SONG, "DROP IT LIKE IT'S HOT")
SHAPIRO: And Snoop says until he worked with you, people couldn't see the fun side of him. He says you brought out a smile, which is now, like, overtaking his identity. Why did that feel important to you? How did you key in on that aspect of him?
WILLIAMS: I didn't. I didn't. And I'm not sure, like, why people say that or why that is in whatever the notes are. But I just made music with him because it was just what I was feeling would look and feel amazing with his voice and what it is that he would say lyrically.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DROP IT LIKE IT'S HOT")
SNOOP DOGG: (Singing) Pop it like it's hot. I got the Rollie on my arm, and I'm pouring Chandon. And I roll the best w*** 'cause I got it going on.
WILLIAMS: But I didn't know. I had no idea. It's not like I - you know, I didn't know. We were just going off of feelings.
SHAPIRO: And the thing that blows my mind is the number of different kinds of people you've done that with, from Justin Timberlake to Britney Spears to - I mean, like, if I listed all the people you have transformed, there wouldn't be any time left for the conversation. It's like you have some insight into an aspect of a person that no one else can perceive.
WILLIAMS: That is - I do have the gift of discernment, but a lot of people have it, by the way.
SHAPIRO: I think there are not a lot of Pharrell Williams in the world, if I'm being frank.
WILLIAMS: There are people who have the gift of discernment, where they can feel, hey; you know, are you okay? That's the gift of discernment. Sometimes we just have deeper degrees of it. Dogs have the gift of discernment. They can sense fear. They can sense when something's not right. We all have it to some degree. Some of us just have it to a deeper degree.
SHAPIRO: OK, so I have to ask about your massive, globe-conquering hit, "Happy." At this point, I think a lot of people know that the studio rejected eight or nine songs you wrote for the movie "Despicable Me 2" before landing on this song. What's the larger meaning that you take away from that experience, of having found massive success early in your career and then hitting wall after wall after wall before finally breaking through with this?
WILLIAMS: Well, after nine times of, you know, nine nos, like, nope, doesn't work, doesn't work, doesn't work, doesn't work, doesn't work, doesn't work, doesn't work, then I had to kind ask myself a rhetorical question. How do you write a song about someone that's so happy that nothing can bring them down? I'm paraphrasing. And the song ended up being the sarcastic answer to that.
SHAPIRO: I don't think I have ever heard that description of this song.
WILLIAMS: Yeah, it's sarcasm. But I didn't realize that I was being sarcastic. It just was - like, that was just my sarcastic response to my rhetorical question. And it was just like, OK, let me just go with this. And before you knew it, it was that.
SHAPIRO: And so when you see people taking it at face value, do you have the impulse to say, no, no, no, no, no, no, you're getting this wrong?
WILLIAMS: No, I did not because when I heard it - and I couldn't believe it came out either. And I was like, well, you'll take it whatever way you get it.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
WILLIAMS: If that's what this takes, fine.
SHAPIRO: Well, Pharrell Williams, thank you so much for talking with us about your life and about the new film "Piece By Piece."
WILLIAMS: Thank you for your time and space, and if you're listening right now, wherever you are, just know that it's never too late to think about the process of something that brings you joy, and it's never too late to start working on it right now. Whether you're 8 or you're 80 years old, it's never too late. In fact, now is a much better word than never.
SHAPIRO: Beautifully said. Thank you.
WILLIAMS: Yes, sir. Thank you so much.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PIECE BY PIECE")
WILLIAMS: (Singing) Till it starts paying off. And when it pays off, pays off, oh, it feels so good inside. Oh. And when I told you, I told you, oh, ain't happen any other way but mine. I never took days off, days off. If they hated, now they want to die. Oh. Finding a brick and where it goes to, we keep stacking high, high, high, piece by piece, piece by piece. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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